A photovoltaic system include solar panels. The remaining electrical components of the system are commonly referred to as balance of system (BOS) components. BOS components include any combination of DC combiner boxes, DC disconnect switches, cables, an inverter, AC disconnect switches, and transformers. These BOS components are typically standalone and discreet products due to the fact that electrical specifications of one photovoltaic system is rarely identical to that of another system, which means that BOS components differ from one photovoltaic system to another. Standalone and discrete BOS components must be interconnected with many cables, which involves hours of configuration and installation labor. Standalone and discrete BOS components also take up much space which may be limited or unavailable for some projects.
What is needed is a way to integrate BOS components to reduce labor costs and square footage occupied by BOS components, while allowing flexibility in the use of a large variety of commercially available BOS components having different form factors, sizes, and electrical ratings.